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Home » blogs » Tom Cheredar's blog

How should Newspapers use Twitter?

Tom Cheredar's picture
by Tom Cheredar on October 25, 2008 - 12:54am.

Rules, standard practices and policies are all null and void when confronted with communicating the news on a new medium. Such is the case with twitter, the web application that allows users to send 140-character messages from virtually any location with at least a cell phone signal.

News organizations usually try one method for using twitter and it then becomes the standard. While some blast the news just like an RSS feed, others are talking back to their followers/readers.

“I really like the ones on twitter that participate in discussion,” says Gerard Barberi a social researcher who is active in many online communities. “Right now, only Chicago papers seem to be doing that.”

Barberi suggested RedeyeChicago and Coloneltribune were among the better news organization affiliated users that knew how to leverage the benefit of discussion in between posting news. The New York Times, which adhered to the RSS feed-like method, was among the worst.

“NYTimes.com used to get on my nerves with their twitter account — 15-20 links dumped at 4 a.m. into the twitterverse,” he says.  “They finally stopped. It was pointless following them.

The Times has multiple account that each feature a section of content, so depending on how you use twitter and how many NYTimes accounts you followed, it could completely drown out the human updates.

“I’m more likely to be responsive to humans,” he added.

But because it’s impossible to define how a news organization should use a service like twitter, I posed the question to my own followers after Nashville’s largest circulated newspaper The Tennessean , started increasing the number of linked stories per day.

From the responses I received, I’ve determined people either prefer to follow only news organizations that participate in an active discussion, or they follow because they appreciate the news being blasted. The noticeable difference between these groups seems to be their familiarity/preference for RSS. The two services are virtually cousins of each other.

Younger users on twitter mostly felt overwhelmed by a huge influx of “dead” messages — messages with no intended desire of a response. But, I really don’t think the age or experience trait holds much weight in this preference. Instead, I’d say it dealt more with how much of your social circle  (friends/family/like-minded acquaintances) used twitter as an essential means of communication.

Again, I don’t think blasting news only through the twitter account is necessarily the wrong use. However, if you have the ability to talk back to your readers and you don’t, aren’t you passing up a great opportunity? 

In the Tennessean’s case, they decided to break the mold by replying to my question with another question: “So what would you like to talk about?”

What, indeed.
—

Below were some comments I found interesting:

gmarkham    @TChed I’ll follow a news org headline feed on Twitter. Rarely click through, though.

erincubert    @TChed I was following a ton via mobile … and then WSJ went nuts, so I had to turn them off … BBC too. I like sleep more than headlines.

sgurne    @TChed I only follow one, just to know what’s going on. any more would be information overload.   about 12 hours ago from web  in reply to TChed

ChristineTatum    @TChed Interesting question. Please let me know what people tell you. And yeah, I do follow news orgs even if they “blast“ only.


Use Twitter the right way

Submitted by robquig on November 1, 2008 - 5:55pm.

The Chicago papers aren’t the only ones using Twitter the right way. There are several others (including ours). Check out our Twitter presence: http://statesman.com/twitter. I Tweet from the main account (http://twitter.com/statesman) and we have someone Tweeting on our Austin360 account. We also live Tweet our football games and have dozens of staff members actively Tweeting.

It’s a mistake to look at the New York Times as an example of how RSS feeds are OK for Twitter. They are a very rare exception - as is CNN. I’d wager the NYT would have 5x its followers it has now if a real person was behind their account.

For a good resource, check out Erica Smith’s list of newspapers that Twitter (http://graphicdesignr.net/blog/2008/10/09/september-newspapers-that-use-...) Outside of the national papers, RSS-fed accounts do not do well.

I followed Colonel Tribune’s example (sans persona), and the Dallas Morning News, San Antonio Express News and others have followed our lead.

Twitter is not an RSS reader, it is a personal medium that is meant to be a two-way conversation. Newspapers that ignore that are wasting one of the best journalism tools to come our way in a long time.


Interesting ...

Submitted by erincubert on October 26, 2008 - 6:20pm.

There are a lot of recommendations out there and thoughts on how an organization should use Twitter. What I don’t understand is the RSS feed approach to twitter with big media such as BBC. You referenced it above from my post.

I found this interesting article, thought I might share it, but it’s the 10 commandments of Twitter.
- http://www.10000words.net/

While it might not be in all seriousness … there is some truth.

1.Thou shalt not tweet every second of thou’s life.

2. Thou shalt ease up on the CAPS LOCK and exclamation points!!!!!!!1!!

3. Thou shalt not be a spammer.

4. Thou shalt not just replyeth, but also have original thoughts.

5. Thou shalt not send more than one tweet to beat the 140-character limit.

6. Thou shalt not be upset if thou isn’t return followed.

7. Thou shalt Twubble.

8. Thou shalt not use Twitter solely as an RSS feed.

9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s followers.

10. Thou shalt love the Fail Whale as thyself.

Erin Cubert | ecubeart.com | erincubert@gmail.com


Why Not Do a LIttle of Both?

Submitted by fishwreck on October 26, 2008 - 12:01pm.

While I agree the NY Times got it wrong on the first go by dumping headlines into the Twitter stream, I think CNNBRK gets it right by limiting their news feed to major breaking stories. The number of posts per day varies considerably, from zero to several, but the value remains high.

They also leave the “conversation” out of the story feed. I think this is a point lost on many news organizations as they experiment with Twitter — breaking news or news headlines have value separate from audience discussion — and thus one should always be made available separately from the other.

The Tennessean could provide a hugely valuable service by providing a Twitter feed of major local breaking news — big fire, school lock down, tornado warning, election outcome. That would be an account for which I would turn on notifications so I could receive updates via text message to my phone.

I also like the idea of “conversational” accounts being driven by the individual authors rather than the publishing organization. Really, how does one converse with “The Tennessean” or “CNN” or “The Times”? I’d much rather converse with Campbell Brown, if only she had a Twitter account.


Your followers' followers

Submitted by ksablan on October 25, 2008 - 6:56am.

The number of people following @NYTimes is six times more than @ColonelTribune’s followers.

But NYT’s reach is nowhere near six times that of the Trib. Try 2.3 times instead. The numbers might suggest that the human approach attracts and/or retains followers who have a wider “fan base.”

The numbers come from Twinfluence.com. “Reach” is basically a Twitterer’s followers plus his or her followers’ followers.

A couple weeks ago, I used Twinfluence to compare newspapers with the most Twitter followers. My “Times and Tribune have biggest reach on Twitter” post compares the reach of the 10 newspaper Twitter accounts with the most followers.

But … I really think the answer to your question comes from outside of the discussion of Twitter as a broadcasting medium. Newspapers should use Twitter, first and foremost, as a reporting tool.